


Crossing the River

by smirnoffmule



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, community: asoiaf_exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 06:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smirnoffmule/pseuds/smirnoffmule
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Catelyn makes a different deal with the Lord of the Crossing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossing the River

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to st_aurafina and cold_clarity for the beta, and bela0103 for the amazing prompt. In the books, Ned is not yet dead when Robb’s army reaches the Twins, so consider this an AU from that point on.

In any other circumstances, Robb’s face might have been comical. His jaw went slack and his face screwed up, and for a moment he looked exactly like he had when he was six years old, and had just had his first taste of ale.

He had ridden out to meet her returning from the Twins, with his young squire and Theon Greyjoy beside him. His snow-coloured banner caught in the wind, and Grey Wind came snuffling up to Cat’s feet, his lip curling in suspicion at the new scents she had brought with her. 

_Does he already smell him on me?_ Cat wondered. _The Late Lord Frey._ But the joke fell flat. It was the Late Lord Stark now, the name which would go with Cat to the end of her days. 

“He can’t be serious,” Theon Greyjoy was protesting. For once, he was not smiling, and Cat noted the effect this had on his face with abstract interest. “My lady, he must know you will refuse, and he means to drive some lesser bargain.” 

“He knows our need,” Cat told him. She felt calm and cold, like a rock in a river. “He is a proud man, and he has long wanted to join his house to Riverrun. He has offered his daughters to Edmure. He nurses each refusal like a wound.” 

“So he thinks he can have you instead?” Robb’s consternation made him put his heels into his horse, and he had to walk in a circle to face her again. 

“This is no favour he’s asking now. He can set his own toll for the crossing. He will be good-brother to the Lord of the Riverlands, and good-father to the whole of the North. If we refuse him, then we will not cross.” 

“We’ll find some other way,” Robb said. “Mother, you’ve been widowed for barely a week.” 

“A week,” Cat agreed. “We have waited a week, and we cannot wait longer. We have found no other way, and no solution has fallen from the heavens. You need Lord Frey’s crossing, and you need his swords. This is his price.” 

Robb’s fist tightened on his reins. “This is not a price. This is an insult.” Theon nodded with him. 

“Then you go and tell him you’re insulted,” Cat said. She kept her hands crossed across her chest to keep herself apart from their raw, sword-rattling emotion. “See if he will join your cause once you’ve made it clear that you so despise him.” 

Walder Frey had them in a weasel’s trap. Cat had known it from the moment he had welcomed her into his hall and offered her his cracked condolences for the loss of her husband’s head. Everything that was on Robb’s face had run through her in that moment, but she was a widow, not a wailing maid. Refusing Walder Frey would not bring Ned back. It would not get Robb across the river. It would not save her girls, or put Lannister heads on spikes, or bring her any of the things in the world she had left to want. 

Theon was looking hard at Robb, and waiting for his answer. _Do not argue overlong,_ Cat willed him. _Do not let him see you be defeated by your mother._ She had never thought that Robb looked much like his father, but she found herself searching for Ned in his face. 

“What about Bran and Rickon?” he asked, accusation in his voice. “Would you take them away from their home?” 

“Bran and Rickon must remain at Winterfell, at least for now. We will see, when this is done.” _There must always be Starks in Winterfell._ Cat had never counted herself a Stark, not truly, but still it was a wretch to think she would never be lady of that castle again. 

_It was not yours. It was never yours. Only through Ned._ His name, short; abrupt, was like a hole that she kept tripping into. 

“You are blinded with grief,” Robb said. “I will tell Walder Frey so. He will not keep you to this.” 

“I will keep myself to this,” Cat told him coldly. His face fell at her tone, but she could not soften. “The Lannisters have killed my husband. They hold my brother at Riverrun. They have my daughters.” 

“My father,” Robb said, softly. “My uncle. My sisters. Mother, I know.” 

Cat felt something falter, but she bricked it up insider her. “Then you know we have no choice.” She placed her words carefully before him. “The Lannisters will do as they please if they do not fear you. And they will not fear a boy trapped on the wrong side of the river.” 

Robb frowned, but he had no answer. He sat still, thinking, while his horse shifted. Time was like water, tumbling past. 

“We could take the Twins –” Theon Greyjoy began, but Catelyn silenced him with a look, as only she could. He had grown up in Ned’s castle, but he had never been her son. 

“Not fast enough,” she said. “And not without loss.” _Some mother on the Iron Islands grieves for him, and yet they bear it. Needs must. Ned would see that. Ned would say that._ But though Cat reached for Ned’s voice in her mind, she could not hear him. Rooks called in the trees and the wind flapped the banners. Robb was watching at her, waiting. 

“You must cross the river,” she told him. He wavered, hung on the hook of indecision, the boy and the lord. Then he turned his horse. 

“But not without loss,” he said over his shoulder. 

The wolf ran on his banner and Cat watched as he galloped away. 

* * *

Cat rode with her son’s army to the Whispering Wood, and then on to Riverrun. She saw Robb crowned king, and rode to treat with Renly at Bitterbridge. Some of the men jested that the Young Wolf would send his mother anywhere it seemed likely to win him ground.

Most carefully avoided the subject of her betrothal around her, except her Uncle Brynden, who told her roundly and soundly what he thought.

“It’s a sad day, Cat,” he said, when she’d made it clear she would not be moved. “Your father would grieve.”

Her father was beyond grieving though, and tossed in his bed crying _Tansy._ Cat did not speak of Lysa being given to Jon Arryn, nor remind her uncle that Ned had been a stranger when she had gone to him.

“You have grieved my father too, in your time,” she did say. The Blackfish pursed his lips, but at least did not try to argue that was different.

“You are not yourself,” he said instead.

_No,_ Cat thought. _I am not myself. I am a widow in an age where kings are killed by shadows._

At least Brienne, her new quiet companion, did not try to question her choices. But then, Brienne had never met Walder Frey.

Cat found herself thinking of Brandon Stark often; the first Brandon and the first Stark she had loved. She and Ned had never mourned him together, though his shade had stood between them when they wed. There had been another shade too, later, when Ned had come home from war with another woman’s son. Walder Frey would still breed bastards if he could, Cat knew, but the gods could let him. Another few for Robb’s army. Her husband-to-be was a jealous old man. She was stronger than he was. 

Robb had ridden to Oxcross and onto the Crag when the news came from Winterfell. Cat’s grief for Ned had been an empty pit; for her sons, it was a twisted blade that took her apart and remade her again with the edges all wrong. She wondered if Theon had killed Shaggydog and Bran’s wolf too. If he hadn’t, they might be his undoing, silent shadows in the night. Cat let herself follow the thought through to its bloody conclusion, but it left her feeling hollowed out and mangled. Her babes were all gone, and she was a mother to vengeance.

Cat set Jaime Lannister free on his brother’s promise, and sent him with Brienne along the Red Fork. She sat on her father’s balcony and watched the sun on the water. The river was empty. Hope was as dangerous as a direwolf stalking.

* * *

Emotions collided insider her when she heard Robb had wed, but in the end, Cat could not begrudge him. This was her battle, after all; that he and all the children she had left should have their future.

_But would that she were Margaery Tyrell, and had the swords to go with it._

Lord Karstark slayed Willem Lannister and Tion Frey in exchange for the Kingslayer. _Tion was mine own blood by marriage,_ Cat thought. _Or will be soon._ She had tarried, it was true, lingering while her father still lived, but now Lord Hoster had gone. Robb had taken Lord Karstark’s head, but the Freys were beginning to mutter.

“There’s a rumour,” Robb told her, awkward and blunt, “that you never mean to marry their lord, but just make your excuses until he is dead.”

They were walking in the godswood, with the noise of the Tumblestone beside them. Cat listened for a moment, as though the river might answer. She knew that Robb and Edmure had both hoped it; Lord Frey was ninety, after all.

“When I think of what I have with Jeyne, and what you will have with that old man…” Robb said.

“I had that with your father for years,” she assured him. _Though it was his brother I loved first. And he loved another._

Robb shuffled beside her, suddenly young. _He is too gallant to command me,_ Cat saw. _Or even to ask. But he knows it must be now, or he will lose his army._

“I will go and do my duty,” she told him, to spare him. His shoulders relaxed. They walked a while in silence, while the river tumbled. 

“I hoped there’d be some other way,” Robb said.

“You were good to hope it.”

“The Freys are right about one thing,” Robb said. “He won’t live forever. I hope you will come home, when this is all over.”

_But first it must be over._ Cat found his hand and squeezed it. The river took her words.

* * *

Her new husband waddled from gout. Cat walked before him to the bed chamber. His eyes tickled on her back, and she held herself straighter. 

She was no blushing maid, so she did not flinch, not even when he crawled between the cradle of her legs. _He is not my true husband. My true husband will always be Ned._ Walder Frey was the water and she was a rock, and he could break and break and break upon her, and she would not move.

But Ned’s face blurred when she tried to hold it in her mind’s eye, becoming first younger, then older than she had ever known him. His skin changed, and stretched taut until it ripped. He was bones then, just bones, all that Cat had to love, and all she had left to love her. She could hear the wheeze of Walder Frey’s breath. His amphibian hands were on her.

When he was done, he rolled away and slept, his snoring ripping parchment in the dark. Cat lay so she did not touch him. She had not dared to pray before the price was paid, but she prayed now that he would die before the night was out. It would be the greatest kindness that Walder Frey had ever done anyone.

His snores did not stop, and sleep did not take her, but as the dark drew on, she started to wander down strange paths. She felt like she was floating with her throat opened. Somewhere along the river, a wolf howled.

* * *

The wedding had been a quiet affair, in respect, it was said, for Cat’s late husband, and for Lord Frey’s seven late wives. When it was done, Robb rode north with his troops to re-take Moat Cailin while the ironborn bickered over who would be king. Edmure lingered a few days longer before riding back to Riverrun – for Catelyn, he said, though he found any excuse to spend time with red-haired Roslin Frey. 

“We cannot both marry a Frey,” Cat told him shortly. “Besides, she’s my step-daughter.” Edmure’s interest was dampened for an hour or two. 

Walder Frey had daughters Cat’s age and older, but most had wed and moved away, leaving only the maids. They were pleasant enough, but too used to being faceless, and so very young. Cat preferred to spend her time alone, or sometimes among the small company of northmen Robb had left behind to keep faith. Her new husband disliked her advice, so Cat saw little of him, a state of affairs which suited her just as well. 

One day, Cat had climbed atop the west tower of the Twins to take the air and watch the water. The Green Fork was in flood, and she was lost in her thoughts when a guardsman called out that a rider was approaching. 

“He has a wolf’s head for a helm,” the guardsman said. “Is he one of the king’s men, m’lady?”

Cat came to look. The man’s head was uncovered, but his helm was tied to the saddle and bounced as his horse jogged slowly. The sight tugged at something inside her, some happier time, when Ned had been beside her, and their castle had been full of guests.

“A dog’s head,” she told the guardsman. “That’s Sandor Clegane.”

“Joffrey’s Hound?” the guardsman said doubtfully. “He’s a Lannister man.”

“He was,” another guard piped up. “I heard he turned craven and ran.”

“Why run here?” Cat wondered aloud. She was mistrustful, fearing a trap. At a look from her, the guardsman drew his bow back.

“There’s a boy behind him,” he said.

_A boy._ Cat moved closer to look. Clegane was light in the saddle for a big man, moving with his horse. The boy was mostly blocked by his body. Cat could see his small legs stuck out and his fingers clutching.

“Wait,” she told the archer. Clegane looked upwards and saw them through the crenels. Cat saw his lips move in a curse. He dropped his reins and held his empty hands out. His horse yawed sideways, and Cat saw the child behind him.

Her own words choked her, and whistled in her throat. 

“ _Oh._ ” Was all she managed. 

It was Arya.

* * *

Cat tried to piece Arya’s travels together, but it was hard to keep in order from her telling. Her stories were full of strange names like _Hot Pie_ and _Jaqen H’ghar._ She spoke of horrors matter-of-factly and small slights which sent her insensible with rage. She carried a thin Braavosi blade which she said had been a gift from her bastard brother. Her father let her keep it, she said, so Cat did too, having extorted solemn promises that she would not attempt to stick it in any Freys. 

Or in Sandor Clegane. Arya professed to hate the Hound, but she followed him round the yard all the same. Her hatred seemed to sustain her, and give her purpose when she felt lost. For his part, Clegane ignored her when he could and cursed her when he couldn’t. He said he might offer his sword to King Robb, so he hung around, drinking too much and provoking the Frey men. Cat mistrusted him, but she could not turn him out after all he had done. 

Arya had learned to swear like him too. Cat might once have been shocked, but it was better that than the sullen silences her daughter now sunk into, or the terrors which she could not express. Cat found herself having to forgive much and swallow most of her questions. Life fell into an odd and jagged routine. 

Then the raven came from Greywater Watch.

Robb had been shot in the eye.

The raven spared such details, but Cat overheard the tales from some of the men who straggled back south from Robb’s broken army. He had turned to rally his troops, raising his helm so they might see his face. 

_Just as his father would have._

The arrow had flown from Harrion Karstark’s longbow. Had it been another man, it might have been said it was an awful mistake. Weapons went stray in war, more than men liked to speak of. When Cat pictured the moment, the battle switched off. Feet went still in the mud, and every eye fixed on Robb’s saddle, suddenly empty. Men stood with their mouths open and weapons loose in their hands. Then a roar went out from the centre, beginning with those men closest. Anger and grief took hold and boiled outwards in a wave. Northman turned on northman and the ironmen swept through them all like the ocean.

Five days after the raven, Cat sat mending a tunic that Robb left behind. Her hands turned the needle over and over, stabbing the same spot, punching through the fabric and into her fingers. 

The door catch rattled like a herald and Arya burst through. Her Braavosi blade was drawn and she sliced at the air before Cat’s face.

“There’s lions outside the west tower gate,” she shouted. “It’s the Mountain and his men. I saw their banners.” Cat started up in alarm. The tunic fell, and she tried to gather up her living daughter. 

“They’ll close the gates,” Cat said, when sense caught up with her. The Twins would not be easily stormed; they had learned that themselves. “They’ll bring the drawbridge up. Any man who tries to cross the moat will be shot in the water.”

“You don’t understand.” Arya wriggled and fought. “They’re _opening_ the gates. They’re letting them in. Robb’s men are fighting, but the Freys are killing them too.”

Cat let her go and ran to the window. The abrupt sound of swords and shouts being cut off came from below. 

“Gods be good,” she said. Robb had left barely four hundred men behind him at the Twins. Beyond the wall, she could see the ripple of Lannister red on the grass. 

Arya came beside her and tugged at her clothes. “Run to the east tower,” Cat told her. “Go to the keep, you’ll be safe there.” She pushed her gently to the stairs, but Arya clutched. 

“ _Go_ ,” Cat said . “I’ll follow. I must speak with my husband.” The words twisted on her tongue. Arya let her go and turned and ran. By the time Cat reached the door, she had vanished.

Walder Frey had rooms in the water tower, and Cat found him there, surrounded by servants who were helping him change. 

“Get out,” Catelyn commanded. “I will help my lord husband.” Her tone was such that they all but dropped him in their haste. They left him half-dressed in his tunic and small clothes. He was bent, and his naked legs were swollen. His lips collapsed into a toothless mouth.

“They are killing Robb’s people,” Cat said, without preamble. “Guests under your roof, all being slaughtered.”

His beady eyes were small with dislike. “Unfortunate,” he said, as though she’d come to inform him of some household mishap.

“Why?” Cat demanded. “If you’d closed the gates, you could have held them off until help came.”

“ _Help_.” He spat the word out. “Help from who? Your boy is dead. The way you’ve been wailing for these past few days, I thought you’d noticed.”

“Roose Bolton still lives. So does my brother. They would have come.” It seemed a scant list of allies in truth, but Cat still threw it at him.

“And the whole southron host would come as well. Would you have me fight all of them, Lannisters and Tyrells? And what do I have left to fight for, eh? _I’m_ not the King in the North.”

“Your oath,” Cat said coldly. “You swore to my son, but you also owe faith to your liege lord. You have no business making terms with the Lannisters if Riverrun does not.”

Walder Frey barked hoarsely. “If your sot of a brother can’t defend his own lands, I don’t see why I should do it for him. Have you seen him sniffing round my daughters? They weren’t good enough to marry when he had the chance. The Tullys have always looked down on me, but at least your father hid it better.”

Cat felt her rage boil. The yard was full of dead northmen. His pettiness was nothing, rank air, and yet it ruled them all. 

“You had your revenge,” she said, with hate in her throat. “You had a Tully to wed.”

His mouth puckered up at the edges. “Aye, a cold fish of a wife.”

“We should have smashed your castle,” Cat cried. “Starved you out.”

“While the Lannisters made merry with your precious whelps. I hear they’ve married one off to the Imp.” His lips worked in and out. “I’ve lost sons too, you know. I lost my heir. I’ve had to name another.” It was true Stevron Frey had died at Oxcross, but Cat did not believe this withered old man had ever known grief. 

He eyed her shrewdly. “Your boy’s death changes all, even you must see that. We can’t keep on fighting the war he lost. We’re pinched between foes north and south. We’ll all be destroyed – you, your whelp, your brother too, if we don’t make terms.”

His words sounded almost reasonable, but Cat only heard them from far away. She looked to the window.

“They are here too soon.” She thought out loud.

“What’s that?” He looked sour.

“Our scouts said Gregor Clegane’s men were at the Trident. If they’d begun marching when Robb died, they would not be here yet.”

“So they’d started already. How would I know their plans? Do I look like Tywin Lannister to you?” He did not. His mouth worked. His eyes darted. 

“But why here? Why not march on Riverrun? It’s closer, it’s the bigger prize, and ripe to strike while Robb was held up in the north.” Cat’s voice rose. “Why come here at all, unless they already knew you would open your gates?”

He flicked an arm at her, dismissive. “You’ve gone mad,” he announced. “Grief does that to women, I hear. I’ve outlived seven of them.”

“You made your terms already.” Cat backed towards the door. “You made them before Robb was even dead.”

He lunged at her with surprising strength. His hand pinched her arm. His lips sprayed spittle at her. “Your precious wolf pup was losing his war. He would have been the death of us all. We put a stop to that.” His eyes were bright with pleasure at the look on her face. “Bolton cooked it up with the lions. Harrion Karstark was pleased to do it, after your pup lopped his father’s head off. Bolton’s men saw him safe out of the battle.”

“You’re lying,” Cat said, but it hurt like the truth. She gathered words like weapons and threw them at him. “Traitor! Oathbreaker! My brother will hang you for this.” 

“Your brother is a floppy fish,” Frey cackled. “He won’t like it, but he won’t complain for long. Riverrun will fall within a month. We’ll see who hangs.”

“That was your price, to betray us.” Cat realised. “Riverrun.” His fingers locked like a bulldog’s jaw. Cat flailed at his face. “Wasn’t I enough?” 

“You were a start,” he said. His fingers tightened, then suddenly his hand went slack and slid off. His mouth fell open. A line of spittle joined his lips.

_Gods,_ Cat thought. _His heart._ But then he fell, and she saw Arya standing behind him with her Needle. The blade was so fine Walder Frey barely bled. 

“He was hurting you,” Arya said, and when Cat said nothing, she said it again, louder. Cat pushed her hand down to lower the blade, and held her fiercely. 

“We must go,” Cat said. Practicalities caught up with her. They’d need blankets, food. “Now. Before anyone finds out what’s happened. We’ll have to go east. Get horses,” she told Arya. “Make sure no one sees. I’ll meet you down there. _Go_ , this time.”

The water tower was strangely empty when Cat ran up to her rooms. Everyone had gone to meet their guests and watch the gates, she guessed. She snatched the blankets from her bed, and tied the remains of her midday meal in a sheet. It was not much, but she did not dare go near the kitchens. She ran down the stairs and out through the door that led towards the east tower. On the bridge, she almost ran into Sandor Clegane. 

She could tell from the stink and the sway in his shoulders he was drunk. She looked him straight in the face, and his eyes slid downwards. He was not so fearsome, she decided. Just tall, and his scars were dreadful.

“You must have seen my daughter in King’s Landing,” she said. “Sansa.” His eyes flicked to hers. He took in the blankets and food in her arms.

“You’re running,” he said. 

“Arya killed Walder Frey.” 

He laughed like a dog in a pit. “Little wolf bitch.” 

“We have to get to Riverrun. To warn my brother that he’s been betrayed.”

“I’m not stopping you,” he said. He wasn’t, it was true, but Cat found she could not run past him. 

“You were a Lannister man,” she accused him. She felt as drunk as he was. “Your brother is outside the gate. Perhaps you’d join them again.”

His eyes flashed. “They wouldn’t have me.” 

“Perhaps they’ll kill you.”

“They could try,” he growled. Half his face was in shadow. 

“Perhaps you’d fight them,” Cat ventured.

Clegane grinned like it hurt him and spat on the ground. 

The east way was guarded, as Cat had thought it would be. Arya waited for them round the corner of the stables. Clegane saddled his own horse with fumbling fingers and swung his bulk aboard. He drew his sword, and he trampled and sliced through the men at the gates. Cat followed close behind him, her horse’s hooves slipping. She meant to keep Arya close with her, but it worked out the other way around, with Arya tugging at her bridle to keep her moving. 

Once they were beyond, with their backs to the Twins, the world seemed to change. They left the path, and rode through the woodland, keeping the Green Fork to their right. Clegane did not speak, and it seemed to Cat that he had slipped into a stupor and his horse was doing all the work. Arya snatched twigs and leaves from the branches as they passed, and tore them and snapped them. 

“We’ll have to cross the Green Fork to get to Riverrun,” Cat said, after a time. She hoped Clegane might respond with some plan, but he seemed not to hear.

“If we keep going south, we can cross at the Trident. We’ll have to stay away from the river. They’ll be searching for us all the way.”

“We can stay in the forest,” Arya piped up. “Me and Hot Pie and Gendry did. We can look at the trees to find the way. The moss always grows on the south side.”

That woke Clegane up.

“Who told you that?”

Arya’s voice turned sulky. She said she did not remember.

Clegane laughed shortly. “Crows always fly north, did you know that too?”

Arya looked upwards. “But – ”

He laughed again and she hollered at him, barging her horse towards him. Birds flew up at the noise and Clegane’s horse kicked out, and Cat had to shout above them both to make herself heard.

“They will hear us at the Twins,” she scolded. They pressed on in silence.

They rode well into the dark before they stopped and made camp around a small, smokeless fire. Cat shared out the blankets and their small measure of food. When she could not bear the scowling any more, she said, “It would be a gift to the Freys if you killed each other before we reach Riverrun.”

“He killed my friend,” Arya said. “He killed Myca. Jory said he cut him near in half.”

“Jory said?” It was a name out of another life. “Who’s Myca?”

“He was the butcher’s boy,” Arya said. “He was helping me. Then Joffrey came and Nymeria bit him, and Sansa lied and they killed Lady –” 

Clegane hauled himself to his feet and walked to a tree to relieve himself. Arya, robbed of the object of her rage, stomped off a short way into the forest. Cat could hear her hacking at branches. Clegane sat back down and stared at the fire. He had managed to save a wineskin from the Twins, and he drank without speaking. 

“Did you really kill this boy she spoke of?” Cat asked, after a time.

He looked her straight in the eye now. “Aye, I did.”

Cat refused to be shocked. “Why?”

“I was Joffrey’s sworn sword. The boy attacked him.” He shrugged his shoulders and took a swig. 

Cat held her hand out to him. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and stared at it, frowning. After a minute, he took her meaning, shrugged again, and passed the skin. Cat tipped her head back and swallowed. The taste was rough on her tongue, but it made her feel bolder.

“Did you have to cut the boy near in half?” she asked. 

“He died,” Clegane said. “Made no difference to him where the sword stopped.” He jabbed his hand at her and Cat handed the skin back. She watched his throat muscles work as he drained it. 

“They don’t die quick if you hit them gently,” he said when he was done. 

“Ned never used a headsman,” Cat found herself telling him. “He believed lords should do their own killing.”

Clegane grunted. The good side of his face was still, but the burns made his mouth twitch. _Ned would never have had such a man in his service. But the men in Ned’s service are all dead as well._

Cat climbed awkwardly to her feet. She was sore from the saddle, and the swallow of wine she had drunk sloshed in her stomach.

“You have served those who slew my husband, and served them viciously by all accounts. But you have done my family a great service too, and so far you have proved faithful. You said you might offer your sword to my son if he wanted.” Her voice shook but she talked on. “Well, my sons are all dead. But my daughters still live, and I mean to protect them. I will go to my family at Riverrun, but I will not rest there. I will not rest until the head of that Imp who married my daughter is stuck on a spike with his brother and sister and their bastard son beside them. I would have your sword, ser, if you would offer it to me.”

“I am not a _ser_ ,” Clegane said. 

Cat had to smile. “Nor was the first knight I swore into my service.” _I pray she still lives somewhere._

“I am not a knight,” he said. He stood abruptly, and for a moment Cat thought he might simply walk off. He drew his sword from his scabbard and turned it so the firelight caught in the blade.

“The sword that killed the butcher’s boy?” He threw it so it landed at her feet.

Cat picked it up and offered it back to him gravely, hilt first. He cursed and kicked the mud, but after a moment he took it, and he sat back down.

“I wish I’d left some fucking wine,” he said.

* * *

They rode south, keeping east of the kingsroad, picking paths through forests and the rocky land which marked the edge of the Vale. They barely saw a soul, and Cat was ever conscious of time passing while the Lannisters and Freys could be marching on her brother. 

“They will get there before we will,” she fretted. 

“Likely,” Clegane said, but there was little else they could do, so they pressed on, foraging at abandoned farms and hunting what they could. Their company was often silent. Clegane had not had a drink since he had finished his skin, and it made him mean-tempered, though Cat hoped it sharpened his senses. Arya was quiet too, but it was clear this kind of life suited her better than the Twins. She helped to hunt and scout and took her turn standing watch while the others slept.

They split the night into three between them. Cat would sit in the dark and listen to the horses stamp and the trees whisper. Walder Frey’s treachery was like a fresh wound, and the urgency she felt would sometimes drive her to her feet to pace back and forth between the sleepers. 

They were following a farmer’s track than ran roughly south. Cat was thinking ahead to their crossing at the Trident.

“The road will be watched, and the ford,” she said. “But we must risk it. I don’t know of any other way to cross.”

“We could swim,” Arya suggested. 

“Bugger that,” Clegane said. He put his heels in his horse and rode on ahead. A few minutes later, he came back to them.

“There’s a rider ahead,” he reported. “When he saw me coming, he turned off the track.”

“It might be you scared him,” Cat said. Clegane grunted.

“We’ll keep to the forest a-ways,” he said. He let his horse barge in front. The trees were close and the leaf litter deep, and it was slow going. Dusk came on and the trees rustled strangely.

“Listen,” Arya said. Cat listened, but could only hear the Hound swearing. He drew his sword and turned this way and that, jabbing it at anything that whispered. Then a shadow was beside them, a hooded man on horseback with his blade naked.

“Gods be good,” a voice said beneath the hood. “Little Cat. I’ve been watching for you.”

Cat couldn’t contain the glad cry that came from her lips.

“Put your sword down, Sandor,” she said. “This is my uncle, Brynden Tully.”

* * *

The Blackfish hugged Cat hard, and greeted Arya with a grave courtesy that pleased her. They were further south than Cat had thought, only a few miles from the crossroads where the high road crossed the kingsroad. But still too late, her uncle told her. Riverrun was under siege from both sides. 

“Freys to the north, and westermen to the south. Daven Lannister commands. Robb beat his father at Oxcross once, but he won’t take the hint,” the Blackfish said.

“And what about Edmure?”

“He holds – for now. But he’ll surrender the castle to save his smallfolk.”

“He has a tender heart,” Cat said. “I pray the gods pay him back in kind.” She felt sick as she said it. For some reason she couldn’t discern, her uncle was grinning at her.

“I have good news,” he said. “Joffrey is dead. Poisoned at his wedding feast, they say.” He told them the whole story, but it didn’t lift her heart. Arya chewed on her lip. Clegane turned his horse sideways to them, and the burned half of his face wore no expression.

“We have swapped one Lannister bastard for another, then,” Cat said. “And now Sansa is missing.”

“Aye,” Brynden Blackfish said. “That wasn’t the good news, though.”

He lead them back to the track in the quickening dark, and along to where a campfire burned in the hollow of a ruined barn. There Robb’s widowed bride sat wrapped in a blanket, turning a rabbit on a spit. She leapt up when she saw them and greeted Cat with a kiss.

“We had feared we would miss you at the crossroads,” she said. The Blackfish called her Queen Jeyne, but she begged Cat not to.

“I never felt like a queen, my lady,” she said. Her face fell. “I don’t feel like a widow either, but it seems I am one.” She told of their escape from Riverrun, swimming under the portcullis gates and slipping up the river in the moonlight.

“Edmure holds to give us time before our flight is discovered,” the Blackfish explained. “And even once the castle is taken, they may not know Jeyne is missing. The Lannister men do not know her. One of her cousins is going to play her part, while her mother puts on some mummer’s farce.”

Jeyne took Cat’s hand and placed it on the curve of her belly. “Your grandchild, my lady,” she said. There was nothing to be felt yet. Cat exclaimed in joy and kissed her, but at her back, she felt a cold wind. The whole realm would be hunting this child if they knew that it existed.

“You should feel like a queen,” she told Jeyne. “You are carrying a king’s heir.”

“A wolf pup,” Brynden Blackfish said. He smiled at Cat again and she felt a little warmer. 

“Where will you go?” Cat asked, and wondered the same question for herself. They were too late to warn Riverrun, and now Cat had another daughter lost in the wilds. She looked at Arya, nodding by the fire, and thought of Sansa. Her heart felt like stone. Sansa would surely try to make her way back to her mother if she could, but now Cat herself was missing.

“I have friends in the Vale,” Brynden Blackfish said. “And I think you do too, Cat.” His looked was pointed. “Lysa has wed Petyr Baelish. He was always fond of you, if I recall.”

“He was fond of us both,” Cat said, automatically. The Blackfish raised an eyebrow. Cat felt nonplussed. Lysa was so changed from the girl she had been, and Cat could not imagine Petyr with her.

“Lysa was not pleased to see me last time,” she reminded her uncle. “And she would not respond to ravens, not even when our father died.”

“Littlefinger is in the Lannisters’ pocket,” Clegane spoke up gruffly. “Or they’re in his. Either way makes no difference.”

“It might,” Cat said. She shared his suspicion, but an uneasy flicker of hope awoke in her heart. Petyr would do what suited Petyr, she was sure, but if it suited him to help her… 

“We’d be stronger if we went together,” Brynden said. He weighed up Clegane. The two men had not spoken beyond nodding a greeting. “You have a fierce reputation, ser,” he ventured. “We could use another sword on the mountain.”

“He’s not a ser,” Cat said for him. To her surprise, Clegane laughed through his nose. Cat felt torn in four directions. _Sansa may make for Riverrun, or perhaps she had started out to the Twins. Or she may flee north, but to where, with Winterfell gone?_ She walked maps in her mind, and was silent for so long that her companions made ready for sleep. 

The next morning, they saddled their horses and rode to the east. Cat had left little parts of herself all over the Seven Kingdoms, but the best hope she could see was to stay in one place and hope Sansa would find her. If they both stayed hidden and both stayed moving, they could spend a lifetime missing each other.

The rocky high rode climbed and stones turned beneath their horses’ feet. The weather turned too, and rains and winds battered, and their party took it in turns to ride first to shelter the others. 

Donnel Waynward met them at the Bloody Gate, and they sheltered there until their bones were dry and the worst of the storms had passed. Brynden Blackfish passed the time teaching Arya how to swing a longsword. He stood behind her, his hands closed around hers to help her lift it. They stepped together and swung. Arya chewed on her lip when she practised, and when the Blackfish praised her, she smiled a smile that Cat hadn’t seen since Winterfell.

While they were stopped, the news came from the Eyrie that Lysa Arryn was dead, murdered by the same singer Cat had ridden this road with before. Cat took herself apart from the others when she heard the news, but she had mourned so much lately that she mostly felt numb.

“The Lysa I knew has been dead a long time,” she told Jeyne, when the girl offered her condolences. Jeyne’s belly was beginning to swell, but she had weathered the storms and ridden as well as any of them. Cat begun to see the girl’s sweet nature hid a well of strength. _Robb chose well. I wonder if the babe will look like him. Red hair and blue eyes._

But those were Tully colours. Cat found herself hoping the babe would have the look of a Stark about it. She begged some old clothes from the knights at the gate and starting sewing through the nights, a nameday cloak in white with a wolf running on it.

* * *

Petyr Baelish had been busy, it seemed, but not in making friends. Outside the Gates of the Moon, their company found six Lords of the Vale with their armies, tents raised and banners flapping. 

“You have my nephew under siege?” Cat asked Yohn Royce coldly. His face was craggy like the mountain, and he did not look abashed.

“We are friends of Lord Robert’s,” he said. “We only wish to secure his interests.”

_His interests, not Littlefinger’s,_ Cat read between the lines. They were loyal men, and she had some sympathy for them, but to show it might seem like weakness, and she wanted them to let her pass. 

The six Lords Declarant offered their party tents, and they offered Cat terms. She could continue up the mountain, if she would deliver their conditions to Lord Baelish. Their principle condition, she gathered, was that he should remove himself as Lord Protector of the Vale, and then remove himself from the Vale altogether. 

“You are Lady Lysa’s sister and Lord Robert’s aunt,” Royce said. “We would not keep you from your kin. But your companions must remain here until you bring us Littlefinger’s answer.”

_And what if it’s an answer you don’t like?_ Cat wondered, but she had little choice. _At least there is no river to cross here._ Cat held the thought as she was helped aboard her mule and all through the treacherous climb. 

Petyr Baelish received her in his solar. He looked pleased to see her, and thoroughly pleased with himself. 

Cat was cold and wet and aching. “I am sorry for your loss, my lord,” she said, formally. Petyr’s face fell abruptly, as though he had only just remembered. He took her cold hand and kissed it.

“And I am sorry for yours, my lady. This war has been crueller to you than most. Anything I can do to heal your hurts, you only need ask.”

Cat reclaimed her hand. “I am not sure I should trust you, Petyr. The Lannisters gave you your title.”

Petyr’s smile returned, neat beneath his moustache. “They did. And then they sent me off out of their sight, which was very unwise. I wanted to send word to you, Cat, but I didn’t know how to reach you. And now the gods have delivered you here.”

“The gods,” Cat said. “And Arya and my uncle, and Sandor Clegane.” She did not mention Jeyne. Her secret was too precious to be given out lightly.

“Your uncle Brynden is well-liked in the Vale,” Petyr said. He frowned. “The Hound, though… where did you pick him up? He’s a mad dog, Cat. His kind always turn.”

Cat looked at him with his soft, dry clothes, his quick smiles and his fast-moving hands.

“What about your kind?” she asked, bluntly. She felt way past bandied courtesies. Petyr laughed as though she’d made a joke. 

“I have something for you,” he said. A dark haired girl with a jug in hand arrived in the doorway, and stopped abruptly.

“Alayne,” Petyr’s voice was playful. “Pour the Lady Catelyn some wine.”

The jug fell to the floor and shattered. Cat leapt to her feet, and found herself staring into Sansa’s startled face.

* * *

Hours later, they stood together on the balcony of Petyr’s solar. The Vale of Arryn opened before them, acres of crisp air and ice. The height made Cat lightheaded, as had the tears and wine and laughter. 

“You have my gratitude,” Cat told Petyr, heartfelt. But gratitude was not all he wanted.

“The Lord Declarants let you through,” he said. “That means something, Cat. You’re the closest kin Lord Robert has left. If you would add your voice to mine, their argument would lose all footing.”

_And fall all the way to the Gates of the Moon._ Cat looked down. “I owe you a debt, but I’m not sure I owe you the Vale. Are you really so devoted to your step-son?” 

His grin became rueful. “You know me too well. But think what a fine lord he will become under my tutelage.” 

“Lysa was doing the child no favours,” Cat conceded. A wave of sadness hit her. “Poor Lysa. She was so afraid she would lose him, it drove her half mad. I did not know grief last time I saw her, not truly. Now sometimes I feel like I have gone all the way through madness and come out the other side.”

“Grief plays strange tricks on the mind,” Petyr said. “I have known it myself these past weeks. Lysa’s death was a terrible shock.”

Sansa was standing in the doorway, a little back from the wind. From the corner of her eye, Cat saw her shift as though she wanted to speak. Littlefinger stepped closer, filling her vision.

“I will hold the Vale in Robert’s name. Imagine if we held it together, you and I. The north would rise for your daughters. We could win it all back.”

It sounded sweet, but Cat felt a stab of suspicion. The north was nothing to Petyr. _It is all just power to him. These lands are just a foothold for his ambitions. He would sell every rock if it suited him._

_And if I offered to look after Robert myself, the Lords Declarant could not refuse me. I’m his own aunt. Then I’d have their swords._ Thoughts hit her in a giddy rush. _I could take it all myself. I have no need for Petyr at all, if I don’t choose to keep him._

Sansa came to her side and tucked herself under Cat’s arm. She had grown even more beautiful in the past two years, taller, and more sombre. With her hair dyed dark, Cat could see something of Ned in her face.

“The north does not belong to me or you,” she told Petyr. “It belongs to my daughters.” _And to Robb’s heir._ Her fingers were calloused from stitching. 

“Of course,” Petyr said, but the words were easy, and were snatched by the wind. He gestured with a hand across the Vale. “The Lords Declarant are thinking of this view as well. They know they can’t take the Eyrie by force, and they can’t starve us out without starving their lord.” 

The sky was so wide that Cat could not keep her thoughts inside her. “It’s only you they want dead. They could send a cut-throat up the mountain.”

Petyr laughed. “Is that what you are?” 

_No,_ Cat thought. _I’m the Lady of the Crossing. I know your need, and I can set my price._ She squeezed Sansa to her. The wind was biting. The great waterfall, Alyssa’s Tears, was already frozen. Time stood still. 

“I will speak to the Lords Declarant,” Cat promised. She did not promise what she would say.


End file.
